Page 116 of The Next Lie

Then I hate myself a little because hurting him does not feel as clean as it should.

“No,” he says.

I shift my grip on Homer. “No?”

“No.”

“That’s all?”

He looks toward the house, then back at me. “Delia was a child taken into a machine I understood too well. Protecting her meant…means…keeping her useful enough to survive and distant enough from me that no one could use my concern against her.”

“She was a child,” I say. “Useful to who?”

His jaw tightens. “The Syndicate.”

“And I guess…I was more useful…dead?”

He looks down. “You were not about being useful. You had to become a ghost.”

My breath catches.

“On paper,” he adds. “In the system. You had to be dead where it mattered. That made protecting you different.”

“Easier.”

His eyes sharpen. “No.”

“Cleaner, then.”

“No.”

“Safer for you.”

His silence answers before he does.

“Yes,” he says finally. “Sometimes.”

The honesty irritates me more than a lie would have.

Homer squirms, so I lower him carefully to the path. He crouches, belly low, then takes two dramatic steps as if exploring a hostile planet. The leash goes taut. Deacon watches him with more seriousness than the situation deserves.

I look at him instead.

“What are your feelings for me, Deacon?”

His attention comes back fast.

I didn’t plan to ask that. It just…popped out. The question is out now, sitting between us like a lit match.

For once, he doesn’t answer immediately.

“It would be easier if I could name them cleanly,” he says.

“Try.”

His gaze stays on mine. “Obsession is part of it.”

My stomach dips.